We needed a solution combining highest quality with maximum flexibility.

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In order to deliver quality, flexibility and speed, a data center company must be able to rely on stable partners who understand the challenges they face in their business. Ficolo found Legrand as a trusted supplier, when it came to setting up their new data center ‘The Air’ in Helsinki.

Ficolo Ltd is a Finnish based data center company with three owned data centers and a connectivity hub. Ficolo’s customers are mostly IT service providers and software companies but also include companies from the energy and financial sectors. For Fujitsu for example – the world-known provider of IT solutions – Ficolo did a sale and leaseback on their main data center in the Nordics.

Kim Gunnelius, Ficolo’s chief commercial officer and co-founder says: “We offer colocation for enterprise, HPC (High-Performance Computing) and hyperscale as well as platforms, private and public clouds all under a single management system with additional security and safety services.”

FULL CONTROL. FULL FLEXIBILITY

Kim: “Many of our customers don’t want to have to focus on the data center, due to a lack of time, a lack of knowledge and the difficulty of finding the right people. So they choose for flexibility, for not having to do big investments. We offer them colocation, lease-back (Ficolo buys the customer’s data center and leases it back to them), and we provide hardware as a service. Our customers just get to choose and pick what they want; we offer them full control and full flexibility.”

ACT FASTER

“Our USP is a very strong focus on the customer. We do everything in our power to make them happy. ‘Fast, flexible and reliable’ is our promise. And although the competition of big data companies is fierce, we beat them on speed. Also, we are extremely climate-friendly, the only data center with a Dark Green rating from a climate research institute (for a Green Bond). For instance, our excess heat is fed back into the district heating grid. We are also a fully certified Climate Neutral Company. Most companies have targets for climate neutrality in 2025 - 2030, we are very proud that we already have reached that goal.”

A DIFFERENTIATING SOLUTION

Ficolo owns state-of-the-art data and cloud delivery centers in Helsinki, Pori and Tampere, with a capacity of 10MW, 12MW and 1MW respectively. The fourth pillar of Ficolo’s business is Ficolo-IX, which is the main connectivity hub in Finland. The Air data park in Helsinki can grow to 50MW. Kim: “In this particular space, we needed a differentiating solution. The highest quality, combined with a maximum of flexibility. There’s where Legrand came in. We already knew the company and already used some of their products, such as PDU’s, so we knew what quality we could expect.”

For this data center, Ficolo chose the Modulan 62U racks and containment. “The 62U racks offer far more space than the traditional 42U ones, which was a decisive purchase reason for us. These racks deliver 20-40 kW per rack, or more if needed. For our clients, we price them the same as the 42U racks, while they get 50% more server space. This is interesting for quite some of our customers, for now or for the future.”

SMOOTH IMPLEMENTATION

The implementation process with Legrand and Enkom Active Oy was smooth, Kim adds. “The cooperation went really well, and Legrand and Enkom Active Oy provided good support when we needed to make some changes for a particular customer who requested a special design in the racks. We were able to meet his demands well and rapidly. The client was really happy, and thus so were we. We did a good job together in this whole journey. It was an example of flexibility, reliability and speed, just like we promise our customers.

ONGOING TOPIC: SPEED!

Just a few weeks ago, another containment of racks was installed. “We do not invest ahead, but buy new racks as we sell more server space. We opened The Air in Q2 of 2020, and there is plenty of room to fill. I can imagine Legrand will be our preferred supplier for this. And if I had to name one thing that could be improved? It would not so much be Legrand related, but rather the general issue in our business: speed! It is an ongoing topic that all DC’s have to cope with: every day that can be deducted from the delivery time, would make us even more competitive.”